A variety of systems have been implemented to generate medical images of certain regions of the body. A particular application in which such medical imaging has proven to be instrumental in diagnosing and treating maladies is ultrasonic imaging of perfusion characteristics utilizing injected ultrasonic echocontrast material. Such echocontrast material allows ultrasonic image system operators to obtain perfusion characteristics important in diagnosing opacification and other blood flow problems. In particular applications, such ultrasonic imaging is utilized in imaging at least a portion of the myocardial perfusion, particularly the perfusion in the left ventricle.
Ultrasonic imaging systems proposed and implemented to date, however, have typically been used to assess the myocardial perfusion only in a single cross-section of a portion of the myocardium. In addition, conventional systems used for ultrasonic imaging have limited automated and semi-automated features for analyzing and displaying data and images pertinent to the relevant medical diagnosis. For example, present systems fail to automatically generate selected ultrasonic images, as well as automatically generating desired multi-dimensional segments of the region of interest. Such deficiencies generally hinder medical analysis of perfusion characteristics throughout the region of interest, including the entire targeted organ.
It is therefore a principle object of the present invention to provide an in vivo imaging system which automatically generates and displays multi-dimensional data and images of a region of interest.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system for obtaining and analyzing multi-dimensional in vivo images which is configured to automatically eliminate temporary or background data from targeted data prior to development of visually-perceivable data sets and images.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system for obtaining and analyzing multi-dimensional in vivo images by collecting ultrasonic contrast data developed by transmitting ultrasonic energy into a region of interest having echocontrast material passing therethrough, which ultrasonic data is obtained over predefined time periods.